Editor,

I am writing to let you know that I support the position you presented in your Wednesday column. As a retired historian, I find many things disturbing about the atmosphere of violence in this nation, seemingly supported at least verbally, by the inflammatory rhetoric used by several of the Republicans running for president as well as several members of Congress.

Those unstable individuals in this country who see violence as a way to gain their goals calls to mind what history tells us about events in Germany and Italy in the 1930s. Brown shirts, Storm Troopers and others who were otherwise criminals saw the opportunity to engage in violent acts with the support and encouragement of the governments of at least those two nations. Huey Long, Joe McCarthy and their followers used the political platforms they had to create a dictatorship on the one hand and gave comfort to the John Birch Society and the White Citizens Councils on the other. Using stereotypes and other forms of innuendo, such demagogues were and are able to gain the support of the uneducated and those feeling disenfranchised a cause to rally around, much to their own discredit and to our danger.

As you might imagine, I could go on and on, but I truly and firmly believe that more editorials such as yours can only have a positive effect on protecting our freedoms and protecting us from the madness that, at times, threatens to engulf us.

Thanks,

GEORGE WESTERGAARD

Clinton